Are you too serious?​

Have you ever been in a super hurry to get somewhere in your car? Suddenly, every light seems to turn red at the worst time. Other drivers are just impediments and you just get angry.

And usually, guess what happens…

You don’t get there any quicker. Sometimes even slower.

It’s funny, I see it a lot of times driving the RV around the country. Obviously, I’m no speed demon when driving the motorhome. That bad boy is 0-60 in 2 hours. 😉 But, on the interstate, I’m usually keeping it to 65mph or so. No big hurry.

But, the funny thing is when I see other vehicles… sometimes even RVs… which will just speed past me. Then, maybe 50-60 miles down the road, they pass me again. Or I see them sitting in a rest area. Me… I’m just rollin’ along in the slow lane, but I seem to get there faster than they do.

The way I see it, this is almost an analogy for life.

This universe seems to have been designed with one massive trick built into it. It’s that the harder you push for something, or the more you NEED it and the more SERIOUS you get about it, the harder it gets to attain.

If you get super serious about it, it becomes harder. If you take it unseriously and just look at it as a game, things get easier.

You ever noticed that?

It’s like back in my college days when I use to play pool a lot. I was pretty good, too. Well, when we had those nights when I was playing some real sharks, I found that if I was sitting there taking my time and trying hard to make the shot, I didn’t make it. Yet, if I just played in a laid back way and just super playful about it (and perhaps a beer or two), suddenly I was making more shots without trying all that hard.

Being serious is a condition born out of an effort to avoid pain or punishment. When the consequences seem terrible, we get really serious. Things become harder.

Yet…

When you approach things with a spirit of play and you do it because it is fun, it is easier to succeed without trying.

It is about being willing to win OR lose with the same level of enthusiasm. You don’t HAVE to have a certain outcome. You can have it either way. You might have a preference for how it turns out, sure. But, you can have it either way and you enjoy the quest.

Less effort because you’re being lighthearted about it.

You will be considered by others to be lucky, perhaps. But, that’s really what luck is, when you get down to it. Luck is really just a lack of seriousness.

To be clear, I’m not saying you’re not working and not giving a crap about anything. It is all about mentality. A lack of seriousness means you’re doing things out of a sense of play and enjoyment, not a desperate NEED for a certain outcome in order to avoid pain.

And on that note…

Go do something playful today. And maybe just find a way to be a little less serious about things.

Enjoy the ride. 🙂